Our research on human animal relations, including past and present projects, such as the Finnish Academy sponsored Arctic Ark, which studied the specific genome of Arctic animal species and how human cultures influence it, as well as “WIRE – Fluid realities of the wild”, which studies the diversity of human relations to wild and to domestic animals in the Arctic in ways that encourage us to revisit ideas of the wild and the domestic in the first place
Finally the time has come for a separate blog post advertising and celebrating the publication of a book volume, for which more a dozen Arctic scholars have been waiting for six years: several of us were wrapping up a workshop at Tohoku University's Center for Northeast Asian Studies (Japan), in 2019, where we discussed if …
Continue reading The benefits of the cold: open-access book 2025
Some may remember our entry here with Erik Kielsen about the disastrous early snowfall and freezing event in South Greenland in late 2023. This summer fieldwork in the WIRE project there is on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of modern Inuit animal husbandry, and I am hosted at the Qorlortup Itinnera sheep farm, which …
Continue reading Fieldwork literally: the stony path of working in the field
Florian Stammler and Erik Kielsen Much has been written already about the losses of reindeer due to icing-over, or rain on snow events, among reindeer herders in Siberia and elsewhere. The climate seasonality is changing and this comes with its challenges in the Arctic for humans and animals alike. For example, in our research site …
Continue reading Extreme Arctic weather impacts for animal husbandry
Congratulations to our research partners from the Sattasniemi Paliskunta in Lapland for their young empowering activism, which is now increasingly noticed also by journalists (see below). Great to have seen a lot of young female herders involved at the Sattasniemi calf marking in early summer 2023 Having started working there this year in two projects …
Continue reading Generation & gender change in reindeer herding – opportunities in Lapland
In the current situation we do not get any more new research evidence from our Siberian field sites, unfortunately. Nonetheless Siberia remains THE place in the Arctic where human cultural diversity, a multiplicity of livelihood, languages, subsistence strategies and mobilities remains best preserved. One very interesting case are the Khanty in West Siberia, who have …
Welcome to join us for the opening of the reindeer slaughter season 2023 in Finnish Lapland! A group of scientists, reindeer herders, animal practitioners, managers and economists are going to meet at our premises in Arctic Centre, Arktikum building, Polarium room on the 31 August 2023 at 10:00. We will discuss current issues in reindeer …
Continue reading reindeer slaughter economy, human and animal welfare, 31 Aug 2023, Arktikum
Prof John Ziker introduces his research and plans in the European Arctic. The anthropology team is pleased to announce a rather spontaneous talk by our visiting professor at the Arctic Centre in Rovaniemi for the summer. John chair of Anthropology at Boise State University, Idaho, USA. Since the 1990s he has worked among Arctic hunters …
Arctic Anthropology 